


Carry Me Through

by rosecake



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bor Gullet - Freeform, Character Study, Gen, Rebellion, Rogue One First Anniversary Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 08:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12979671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/pseuds/rosecake
Summary: "You can stop it. You're the only one that can.""I'm a cargo pilot," said Bodhi. "Not even a fighter pilot. Acargopilot."Bodhi goes from one act of rebellion to being a part of the Rebellion.





	Carry Me Through

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the first day of Rogue One Anniversary Week on tumblr! Day One: Rebellion.

The rain was loud as it struck the metal canopy of his shuttle, loud enough that he thought he was mishearing Galen at first. But Galen was clear and he was insistent.

"It's not too late, there's a way to destroy it," said Galen. His hands were on Bodhi's shoulders, and Bodhi should leave, should walk away from this mess while he still could, but he felt frozen. There was too much information coming at him too fast, faster than he could process it. "I've spent so long making sure it can be destroyed. Saw, the Alliance, they just need to know the trap exists. Everything else, Jyn-" he said, choking on his daughter's name for a moment before he could continue. "It has to be destroyed. That's the only thing that matters now."

Bodhi could hear the urgency in his voice but he still couldn't wrap his head around what Galen was telling him. His mind was still stuck on the idea of whole worlds being destroyed in seconds. As pathetic as it was to admit it, Bodhi didn't have any problem believing the Empire could dream up such an evil thing. He was just having a hard time acknowledging that they'd actually managed to build it.  That _Galen_ had built it.  

And that Bodhi had spent the past few years helping him.

Bodhi sighed. "Your plan isn't going to work, Galen. You're asking too much of me."

"I understand how much I'm asking, and I know it isn't fair of me to ask it of you, but you can do this, Bodhi. You can stop it. You're the only one who can."

"I'm a cargo pilot," said Bodhi. "Not even a fighter pilot. A _cargo_ pilot."

The idea that he could pull one over on the Empire was insane.  He was a mediocre gambler at best, not a spy. Certainly not a rebel.  

"You're selling yourself short," said Galen. "You can make a difference, if you want to."

Bodhi almost screamed in frustration. Of course he wanted to stop the Empire! That didn't mean he thought it was possible. He rolled the data chip Galen had given him between his fingers. Against a planet killer, though? It wasn't as if he could say no.

"You aren't really giving me a choice here," he said.

"You always have a choice," said Galen. He looked exhausted, and older than he was, and for the first time Bodhi realized how much of the past few years had been Galen putting up a front. He wasn't acting now, though. "You can take the message to the Alliance, or you turn it over to the ISB. Or you can just trash it."

Going straight to Military Intelligence would be the smartest option if he wanted to ensure his long-term survival, but the thought of turning Galen in made him sick to his stomach. And Galen must have realized it, too, because he didn't sound at all worried about Bodhi turning him in.

He seemed so certain Bodhi was going to do the right thing. Or at least try to.

"I can't."

Galen raised his hands Bodhi's face. They were cold from the rain, and Bodhi shuddered at the touch.

"Yes, you can," said Galen. "You can do this. You just have to deliver the message, and the Alliance will handle the rest." 

Bodhi wasn't an optimist. He was born in the Holy City, but he'd stopped having faith in the Force a long time ago. Still, even though it turned out Galen had been lying to him for years, Bodhi couldn't stop himself from believing him now.

***

Bodhi carried Galen's faith with him as far as Jedha, as far as the Bor Gullet, and then the Bor Gullet carelessly and savagely ripped it out of him. It pried out every memory Bodhi had, got the disgusting slime of its tentacles all over them, and then tried to shove them back all covered in grime into the wrong spots. And it did it again and again until, unable to find the deceit it was looking for, it got bored and pulled away from him.

Saw's rage filled the small room. "What is the world coming to when even Bor Gullet fails me? What did they do to your mind before they sent you to me, spy?"

_Nothing!_ Bodhi wanted to scream it in Saw's face, but he'd forgotten how his voice worked. _Your monster didn't find anything because I'm not lying!_ He wasn't certain of much, but he knew he wasn't lying. The Bor Gullet was gone, though, so nothing was around to hear his thoughts as the Partisans dragged him away and threw him in a cell.

His head hurt. Going through his memories, trying to put them back in order, hurt more than anything he'd ever gone through in his life, and for a while he wasn't even sure why he was trying so hard to fix things. Just being broken seemed so much easier. But he had something he needed to do, a message that needed to be delivered. Someone had believed in him, although he couldn't remember exactly who. His mother? His sister? His best friend from the academy?

The Chief Engineer from the research facility he worked at?

That didn't sound right, but it was the best he could manage. It was a starting point.

Eventually he got all his memories slotted back into place.  Someone called out to him, and he remembered how to talk again.  How to get up and move again. He put himself back together just in time to see Jedha go up in a storm of rock and ash, and he wondered why he'd even bothered. 

Being broken really was much easier. 

***

Jedha should have been the end of it. Galen had been wrong - his message had been too little, too late. There was no making a difference against something as vast and cruel as the Empire, especially not now that they had the Death Star. 

It wasn't the end, though. Not when Jyn was so much like her father. "It's not too late," she said, and people believed her, even though they had no reason to. 

_You can make a difference._

He still wasn't sure that was true, but he'd already fucked up his old life beyond fixing. He might as well try and see things through.  

***

Bodhi had a few broken ribs. That had come as a surprise, because from the pain on the flight back from Scarif he'd been convinced that he'd broken every single last one of them, but the base doctor had assured him that he'd only broken three as she taped them up. He was given a few painkillers, and while they took the edge off it still hurt to breathe too deeply.

Thanks to his injuries most of his time since getting back from Scarif had been spent sitting around in a corner somewhere exhausted, watching other people do things. At the moment Jyn was sitting with him. Her arm was in a sling, and it would probably stay in a sling for a few months until the damage from her blaster wound had healed, so for the time being she was just as useless as he was.

"I feel like I should be doing something," said Jyn. She sounded just as tired as Bodhi.

"I know how you feel," he said.

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes.

Really, they should both be sleeping, but it felt wrong to sleep with so much going on. The base was a hive of activity around them. The celebration after the destruction of the Death Star had segued directly into a frantic effort to evacuate the moon before the rest of the Empire's fleet turned up to take revenge. They may have just taken out the Empire's greatest weapon, but at the moment the Alliance barely had enough ships left to take on a single Star Destroyer.

It was entirely possible they were still going to die on Yavin 4, but Bodhi was too tired to worry about it.

"Thank you," said Jyn, breaking the silence.

"What for?"

She shrugged, and then winced as the motion jostled her injured shoulder.

"For everything," she said. "My father isn't around to thank you himself, so I figure someone needs to do it in his place."

Bodhi had already been thanked, by Mon Mothma and Princess Leia and a lot of other Alliance people he'd already forgotten the names of, and it felt weird hearing it from them and it felt even weirder hearing it from Jyn.

"He made it sound so simple," said Bodhi. Even now, after so much time and the confusion of the Bor Gullet, he can still feel Galen's hands on his shoulders, grounding him. "Just deliver the message."

Jyn smiled, sharp and rueful. "Nothing worth doing is ever easy," she said, and that sounded more like something she got from Saw than something she got from Galen.

"No, I guess not," said Bodhi, brushing his hair back from his face. "For a while there I wished I'd never met him at all," he confessed.  

Jyn was looking down, and the fall of her hair obscured her face. "That's fair," she said.  

Maybe, maybe not. Where would he be if he hadn't met Galen? Had the Empire bothered to make sure all their lowly cargo pilots were clear before the strike on Jedha? Or would he have been killed in the Alliance strike on Eadu? Or maybe he'd still be alive, alone in his shuttle, trying hard to believe the Imperial propaganda about Jedha and Alderaan all while knowing full well in his heart what he'd been a part of.

Bodhi's ribs burned as he inhaled. Shallow breathing, he needed to stick to shallow breathing. Getting emotional was just going to hurt.

"No, it's not. I'm glad I met him," said Bodhi. "I'm glad I met you, too." 

Jyn looked up and she was smiling, lighter and more openly than the last time. "Same," she said, hitting him lightly in the arm.

Outside of their alcove, things were getting louder. The first round of ships were taking of for parts as of yet unknown.

"So where do we go from here?" asked Bodhi.

"Who knows? I've must have met a dozen generals over the past few days. I'm sure eventually one of them will get around to telling us what to do."

"Waiting around to be told what to do? That doesn't sound like the Jyn Erso I know."

"Give me a break, I'm tired," said Jyn, laughing. "I just want to sleep for a month.  Then I'm sure I'll get around to doing something to make them regret giving me an officer's rank."

They both had officer's ranks now, to go along with their new medals. Nobody had actually asked him if he wanted to be a part of the Rebellion, they'd all just assumed it was where he belonged, and he was grateful for the assumption. It was strange, thinking of himself as part of the Alliance. He wasn't used to feeling proud.  

"Well, whatever you do, just make sure you take me with you, okay?" he said.

"It's a deal."


End file.
